85 OFWs duped by recruiters return from Lebanon

MANILA, Philippines - Aspiring overseas Filipino worker (OFW) Remedios Alajod thought that she would finally be able to work as a nursing aide in Dubai, only to be duped into working as a domestic helper in Lebanon. She had apparently already become suspicious when her recruiter gave her a passport with her picture but had the name of another person, one called Purificacion Fariñas. However, she said she had no choice but to go along with the recruiter because she had a family to support in the Philippines. Alajod is just one of the 85 OFWs who returned to the Philippines on Friday because they were tricked by an illegal recruiter into going to Lebanon – where there is a deployment ban on Filipinos. One of the victims, Pricila San Antonio of Guimban, Nueva Ecija, said she paid P30,000 as placement fee to the illegal recruiter. She and Alajod said that many more Filipinos had easily passed through the immigration officer at the airport because they apparently paid an "escort fee." Vice President Noli de Castro on Thursday said he had directed the Task Force Against Illegal Recruitment (TFAIR) to start identifying those responsible for deploying these 85 OFWs. "I already instructed TFAIR to look into the case of these 85 OFWs, as to who recruited them and as to how they were sent to Beirut, considering that we have a ban on deployment to Lebanon," De Castro said in a statement released on Thursday. The Philippine ambassador to Lebanon, Gilberto Asuque, earlier sought the help of the Office of the Vice President to determine how the number of OFWs being illegally deployed to the troubled Mideastern state continued to increase despite restrictions. De Castro reminded aspiring OFWs not to believe recruiters who tell them that the ban to Lebanon has been lifted. "I want to reiterate that the ban on deployment to Lebanon still stands. So please do not fall for those who offer jobs in Lebanon. Do not be a victim of these unscrupulous individuals," he said. The government stopped sending Filipino workers to Lebanon in 2006 when violence between Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalated. - Kimberly Jane T. Tan, GMANews.TV